


Leverage, Season 1, Episode 5, The Bank Shot Job

by TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer



Category: Leverage
Genre: Analysis, Episode Review, Episode: s01e05 The Bank Shot Job, Meta, Nonfiction, Season/Series 01, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:29:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24364342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer/pseuds/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer
Summary: Warning: Contains spoilers for the episode and the rest of the series. Complete.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Leverage, Season 1, Episode 5, The Bank Shot Job

Open to Sophie playing the part of a bank teller when cowboy Nate and another man walk in. This man is even more annoying than most of Nate’s personas, and to top off the annoyingness with horribleness, he’s a judge with a god complex.

A woman politely greets him, and he commits sexual assault. Then, he tries to get her phone number from a male clerk whose name he doesn’t even remember, and it turns out the girl is nineteen.

Judge Horrible wonders if she has a younger sister, and for all I don’t ever wish death on real people, could this fictional character be subjected to a horrible death, please?

Nate and Judge Horrible go to retrieve something from a safety deposit box, and the clerk’s offer of any future help is met with hostile rudeness from Judge Horrible.

It turns out Judge Horrible is involved in a laundering scheme.

In a nearby van, Hardison is complaining about this job to Parker.

Meanwhile, Eliot is carrying around a statute outside. Putting it in a truck, he declares they’re almost done, and he wants to be the one to contact their clients after they leave county lines. “I just wish we could do more than bankrupt that corrupt son-of-a-bitch.”

Thankfully, this wish will be granted.

Not-so-thankfully, Nate and Sophie being trapped during a bank robbery will be part of this.

This isn’t Nate’s fault, but it’s interesting his Sherlock scanning ability is what arguably prevented him and Judge Horrible from leaving before it happened. He was putting together what was about to happen, and by then, it was happening.

Nate demands, “Get out now.”

Hardison wonders if he’s talking to them, and Parker responds, “An unmarked van parked across the street from a bank that’s being robbed? Yeah, I think he’s talking to us.”

Having realised how close Nate was to getting out, Hardison gripes, and Parker points out Nate wouldn’t have taken the opportunity to get out sooner even if he could have due to the fact Sophie was in there. True.

In the bank, at one point, Judge Horrible shoves the briefcase of illegal money under a desk.

The robbers, a father and son duo, discover the money given isn’t enough, and the rest of the money can only be accessed at certain times by the bank staff. They demand the hostages push over any money, jewellery, and watches they have.

Meanwhile, police pass the van containing Hardison and Parker, and Parker comments on their impressive response time.

In the bank, Judge Horrible thinks he should talk to the robbers, and Nate isn’t down with this jackass getting them all killed. Judge Horrible does correctly peg the duo as being far from cold-blooded murderers, but this doesn’t mean him talking to them would end well.

Outside, Eliot shows up, and ignoring the cop trying to hold him back with the rest of the crowd, he demands, “Tell me what’s going on in there.”

Inside, Nate talks to both Judge Horrible and Eliot: Two men, amateurs.

“You want me in there?”

Not right now, is the answer.

“All right, your call, boss.”

Inside, Judge Horrible decides he’s definitely talking to them.

Sophie and Nate talk via earbud, and she just wants to focus on getting out, but he’s decided they’re going to help the father-son duo, though, he frames it as the best way to get out rather than relying on the local police.

Judge Horrible’s talk doesn’t go well, but at least, no one ends up shot.

Meanwhile, Eliot’s waiting for his future spouses, and when they show up in FBI gear, Parker is disdainful over how lousy the robbers are at robbing.

As someone who frequently criticises the plans of fictional villains for how ineffective said plans are, I get her here.

H&P go to the crime scene, and they sheriff doesn’t know what to make of them, but they look at FBI, and so, there’s no question they’re FBI.

It turns out the town doesn’t have a SWAT team, but they do have a man with a long gun who’s a crackshot. Said man may or may not be law enforcement, but I’m leaning towards the latter.

In the bank, looking out the window, Judge Horrible isn’t happy with the FBI arriving since they could discover the illegal money.

The robbers demand the manager, said manager makes himself as flat as possible onto the floor, and Sophie declares herself the manager. The nineteen-year-old is all, ‘Wait a minute-,’ but the manager’s willing to let Sophie have his title if it means she deals with the robbers instead of him.

Looking at Sophie with starry-eyes, Nate asks outside Team Leverage what’s going on with the robbers.

Outside, I think Hardison discovers the father is ex-military.

Eliot is heading to find the family members of the father-son duo.

In the bank, power is cut off in the bank, and it turns out this is something a deputy learned in a seminar in crisis management.

Giving a try at getting the vault she knows she can’t open opened (would the power going out have any effect on the vault?), Sophie talks to the father. “Your son is in some kind of trouble?”

I love the facial expressions the actor gives the character during this conversation. All I keep thinking about is a pilgrim going, ‘Witchery! This woman is a witch! She knows things she shouldn’t! Witchery, I say! Do you hear me, I do declare her a witch!’

Meanwhile, the son gets a call, and promising all of it will be there, he begs, “Don’t hurt her.”

At the house, not wearing gloves, Eliot breaks in. He says someone broke in before he did, and someone was in the house when it happened. He gives the son’s name.

In the bank, likely imagining what he’d say or want said to Sam if Sam was in this sort of trouble, Nate goes over to talk to the son, and the casting did a good job with the actors playing the father and son. The son has extremely similar facial expressions when confronted with Nate to his dad with Sophie.

The son confesses the people who kidnapped his mother are blaming him for something, and they’re demanding a huge amount of money by a certain time or they’ll kill her.

Nate promises, if the son does everything he says, they’ll get the mother back.

The son says he got caught up in the meth trade, and the dealers think he stole a shipment.

Sophie and Nate try to convince the father-son duo to let them help, and there’s a funny moment where the father, still holding his gun on Sophie, says he can’t trust Team Leverage due to them being thieves.

Because, they’re the ones who just literally robbed people at gunpoint.

If he were saying there’s no honour among thieves, it’d be one thing, but he’s clearly holding himself away from the label of ‘thief’.

Nate talks to poly trio via earbud, and the son’s scared on a whole different level.

Outside, Parker is going to be breaking in the bank now. Hardison brings up the fact the sheriff called the real FBI who will be showing up eventually, and Nate’s order is to worry about eventually when it comes.

The son asks what’s going on, and to build trust, Nate puts his earbud in the son’s ear. Aw.

However, the father orders everyone against the desks, and the nineteen-year-old thanks Sophie for trying.

Then, it’s revealed via a nod shared between Nate and the father that the father’s onboard. The father subtly kicks the briefcase under the desk somewhere else.

Outside, Hardison fakes getting a call from inside, and as he’s distracting them, Parker breaks in, and the father hesitantly gives the briefcase to her. She does a good job at keeping her awkwardness under control here.

Good job, Parker.

Judge Horrible, on the other hand, continues to live up to his moniker, and Nate ends up getting accidentally shot.

Yeah, but he’s a main character, and main characters on this show never have serious lasting effects when it comes to getting shot.

Judge Horrible manages to get the son held hostage, and outside, everyone is panicking. Hardison tries his best to de-escalate, and inside, Judge Horrible has figured out Nate and Sophie are up to something. He believes them and the duo have been in this together the whole time.

Then, taking the guns, he becomes the hostage-taker. No one leaves until he gets his illegal money back.

Eliot is waiting for the dealers to come get the money.

Hardison has convinced everyone the shot was an accidental misfire with no one being hurt but a grazed hostage who will be released as soon as their demands are met.

Inside, Judge Horrible has discovered Nate’s earbud. Taking it, he informs the poly trio they’ll get their future parents and parents-in-law back when he gets his money. Sophie’s forced to give hers up, too, and both are destroyed.

On the floor, Nate and Sophie indulge in their tension-filled dance.

Meanwhile, the dealers have gotten their money, and showing she’s more than a passive damsel, the mother tries to escape on her own. She fails, but Eliot’s there to help, and I really like Kane’s acting in this scene.

Hardison is doing computer stuff when all the pizzas the duo supposedly demanded arrive, and inside, Sophie is trying to get Judge Horrible to let Nate go.

“And give up my leverage?” He scoffs.

Nate tries to assure the duo that the mother will be okay. The father asks if Nate’s people are good, and he chuckles. “Yeah. The best.”

The son goes on a guilt spiral, and his father pulls him close.

Hardison wants in with the pizzas, and Nate makes Judge Horrible believe the money will be along with said pizzas.

Sure enough, one of the pizza boxes has the money.

Except, as Judge Horrible realises, now, everyone outside thinks he’s the original bank robber.

Nate’s transported out via paramedics.

The sheriff disappointedly says, if the judge needed money, he could have come to the sheriff.

Judge Horrible tries to prove his innocence, but there’s a briefcase with drugs he just claimed was his before it was opened.

It’s revealed the son and father were dressed up as paramedics, and taking their clothes, Parker and Eliot are playing leaving hostages.

The cops didn’t realise Parker was the FBI agent they’d been talking to earlier?

Yeah, alright.

In the ambulance, the driver is the mother. Awesome.

Back in the bank, footage has been manipulated, and no one is going against the statements Sophie and Eliot are making. Judge Horrible appeals that the sheriff knows him, and, “Yeah, I do, Roy. That’s kinda the problem.” Heh. He so deserved that.

Judge Horrible is arrested, Parker is back in FBI gear, and the sheriff is complimentary towards Hardison. Hardison says they have another team coming in to do the wrap-up, and no sooner do they drive away that McSweeten and Taggert arrive.

And two of the local drug dealers have been hand-delivered to the police.

In the ambulance, the other family has been dropped off, Hardison is driving, and Eliot is treating Nate. Sophie is encouraging of how her future daughter handled everything, and Nate is encouraging towards Hardison. Aw.

Fin.


End file.
